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In political science, the term Caesarism identifies and describes an authoritarian, populist, and autocratic ideology inspired by Julius Caesar, the leader of Rome, from 49 BC to 44 BC. [1] [2]
The German historian Johann Friedrich Böhmer first used the term Caesarism in 1846, to describe the state's political subordination of the Roman Catholic Church. [1] Published in 1850, Auguste Romieu's L'ère des Césars defined Caesarism as the military rule and régime of a warlord, and "following Romieu's polemic, 'Caesarism' quickly gained vogue status." [1] In 1857, the religious writer Orestes Brownson used the term Caesarism to mean rule and régime of absolute monarchy. [1] In 1858, the mainstream usage of the term occurs in a Westminster Review article of political criticism about the "clumsy eulogies of Caesarism as [being] incarnate in the dynasty of Bonaparte". [1]
As an admirer of Julius Caesar, Napoléon Bonaparte espoused Caesarism as a justification of his rule and régime of France. [3] Napoleon III's policy under the Second French Empire, which combined an authoritarian regime and a proactive social policy, notably with the Ollivier law of 1864, can be described as a form of "social Caesarism". [4] According to historian Louis Girard (historian) , this policy aims in particular to rally the workers to the regime in the face of hostile liberal bosses. [5]
Benjamin Disraeli was accused of Caesarism in March 1878 when, in anticipation of war with Russia, he mobilised British reserves and called Indian troops to Malta. G. K. Chesterton made one of the most ringing denunciations of Caesarism in his work Heretics, calling it "the worst form of slavery". [6]
Sociologist Max Weber believed that every mass democracy went in a Caesarist direction. Professor of law Gerhard Casper writes, "Weber employed the term to stress, inter alia, the plebiscitary character of elections, disdain for parliament, the non-toleration of autonomous powers within the government and a failure to attract or suffer independent political minds." [7]
A so-called "democratic" form of Caesarism has been advocated by theorists like Venezuela's Laureano Vallenilla Lanz in Cesarismo Democrático (1919). [8] Italian Duce Benito Mussolini and the ideology of Italian fascism espoused Caesarism. [9]
Antonio Gramsci stated that the roots of Caesarism lie at the level of a "crisis of authority," which is also a crisis of representation that occurs when social groups no longer identify with political parties. These then become anachronistic, allowing a Caesarist solution to emerge. In the Italian case, Gramsci locates the causes of this socio-political disintegration in the destabilizing experience of the First World War, where the large peasant masses were forced to fight. At the same time, they had been passive during the Risorgimento. Caesarism is a macro-social phenomenon and cannot be driven by the emergence of an individual; this phenomenon, therefore, fulfills a political function. Furthermore, Gramsci evokes the possibility of a "Caesarism without Caesar" but implemented by a group like the British National Government bringing together the Conservatives and Labour. [10]
Oswald Spengler described Caeserism as a final phase of modernity that would succeed democracy.
According to French historian Christian-Georges Schwentzel in the 21st century, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan partly took over this Caesarean model by adapting it, responding at the same time to a desire for authority and grandeur emanating from their peoples. [11] [12] In the 2020s, parts of the American right-wing, especially those associated with the Claremont Institute think tank, have advocated for "Red Caesarism" as an authoritarian solution to problems facing the US. [13]
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy. Opposed to anarchism, democracy, pluralism, egalitarianism, liberalism, socialism, and Marxism, fascism is at the far right of the traditional left–right spectrum.
Totalitarianism is a political system and a form of government that prohibits opposition from political parties, disregards and outlaws the political claims of individual and group opposition to the state, and completely controls the public sphere and the private sphere of society. In the field of political science, totalitarianism is the extreme form of authoritarianism, wherein all socio-political power is held by a dictator, who also controls the national politics and the peoples of the nation with continual propaganda campaigns that are broadcast by state-controlled and by friendly private mass communications media.
Antonio Francesco Gramsci was an Italian Marxist philosopher, linguist, journalist, writer, and politician. He wrote on philosophy, political theory, sociology, history, and linguistics. He was a founding member and one-time leader of the Italian Communist Party. A vocal critic of Benito Mussolini and fascism, he was imprisoned in 1926, where he remained until shortly before his death in 1937.
Action Française was a French far-right monarchist and nationalist political movement. The name was also given to a journal associated with the movement, L'Action Française, sold by its own youth organization, the Camelots du Roi.
Clerical fascism is an ideology that combines the political and economic doctrines of fascism with clericalism. The term has been used to describe organizations and movements that combine religious elements with fascism, receive support from religious organizations which espouse sympathy for fascism, or fascist regimes in which clergy play a leading role.
Bonapartism is the political ideology supervening from Napoleon Bonaparte and his followers and successors. The term was used to refer to people who hoped to restore the House of Bonaparte and its style of government. In this sense, a Bonapartiste was a person who either actively participated in or advocated for conservative, nationalist, monarchist, and imperial political factions in 19th-century France. Although Bonapartism emerged in 1814 with the first fall of Napoleon, it only developed doctrinal clarity and cohesion by the 1840s.
Fascist has been used as a pejorative or insult against a wide range of people, political movements, governments, and institutions since the emergence of fascism in Europe in the 1920s. Political commentators on both the Left and the Right accused their opponents of being fascists, starting in the years before World War II. In 1928, the Communist International labeled their social democratic opponents as social fascists, while the social democrats themselves as well as some parties on the political right accused the Communists of having become fascist under Joseph Stalin's leadership. In light of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, The New York Times declared on 18 September 1939 that "Hitlerism is brown communism, Stalinism is red fascism." Later, in 1944, the anti-fascist and socialist writer George Orwell commented on Tribune that fascism had been rendered almost meaningless by its common use as an insult against various people, and argued that in England the word fascist had become a synonym for bully.
In politics, a strongman is a type of authoritarian political leader—civilian or military—who exerts control through military enforcement and has, or has claimed to have, strong popular support. Strongmen typically claim to have widespread popular support, portray themselves as the only one capable of solving the country's problems, and espouse a disdain for liberalism and democracy.
The history of fascist ideology is long and it draws on many sources. Fascists took inspiration from sources as ancient as the Spartans for their focus on racial purity and their emphasis on rule by an élite minority. Researchers have also seen links between fascism and the ideals of Plato, though there are key differences between the two. Italian Fascism styled itself as the ideological successor to Ancient Rome, particularly the Roman Empire. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's view on the absolute authority of the state also strongly influenced fascist thinking. The 1789 French Revolution was a major influence insofar as the Nazis saw themselves as fighting back against many of the ideas which it brought to prominence, especially liberalism, liberal democracy and racial equality, whereas on the other hand, fascism drew heavily on the revolutionary ideal of nationalism. The prejudice of a "high and noble" Aryan culture as opposed to a "parasitic" Semitic culture was core to Nazi racial views, while other early forms of fascism concerned themselves with non-racialized conceptions of their respective nations.
Robert Owen Paxton is an American political scientist and historian specializing in Vichy France, fascism, and Europe during the World War II era. He is Mellon Professor Emeritus of Social Science in the Department of History at Columbia University. He is best known for his 1972 book Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, which precipitated intense debate in France, and led to a paradigm shift in how the events of the Vichy regime are interpreted.
What constitutes a definition of fascism and fascist governments has been a complicated and highly disputed subject concerning the exact nature of fascism and its core tenets debated amongst historians, political scientists, and other scholars ever since Benito Mussolini first used the term in 1915. Historian Ian Kershaw once wrote that "trying to define 'fascism' is like trying to nail jelly to the wall".
Neue Rechte is the designation for a right-wing political movement in Germany. It was founded as an opposition to the New Left generation of the 1960s. Its intellectually oriented proponents distance themselves from Old Right Nazi traditions and emphasize similarities between the far-right and the conservative spectrum.
Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political status quo, and reductions in democracy, separation of powers, civil liberties, and the rule of law. Authoritarian regimes may be either autocratic or oligarchic and may be based upon the rule of a party or the military. States that have a blurred boundary between democracy and authoritarianism have some times been characterized as "hybrid democracies", "hybrid regimes" or "competitive authoritarian" states.
Reactionary modernism is a term first coined by Jeffrey Herf in the 1980s to describe the mixture of "great enthusiasm for modern technology with a rejection of the Enlightenment and the values and institutions of liberal democracy" that was characteristic of the German Conservative Revolutionary movement and Nazism. In turn, this ideology of reactionary modernism was closely linked to the original, positive view of the Sonderweg, which saw Germany as the great Central European power, neither of the West nor of the East.
Passive revolution is a transformation of the political and institutional structures without strong social processes by ruling classes for their own self-preservation. The phrase was coined by the Marxist politician and philosopher Antonio Gramsci during the interwar period in Italy.
Corporatism is a political system of interest representation and policymaking whereby corporate groups, such as agricultural, labour, military, business, scientific, or guild associations, come together and negotiate contracts or policy on the basis of their common interests. The term is derived from the Latin corpus, or "body".
Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were opposed by many countries forming the Allies of World War II and dozens of resistance movements worldwide. Anti-fascism has been an element of movements across the political spectrum and holding many different political positions such as anarchism, communism, pacifism, republicanism, social democracy, socialism and syndicalism as well as centrist, conservative, liberal and nationalist viewpoints.
In political science, the terms radical right, reactionary right and populist right have been used to refer to the range of nationalist, right-wing and far-right political parties that have grown in support in Europe since the late 1970s. Populist right groups have shared a number of causes, which typically include opposition to globalisation and immigration, criticism of multiculturalism, and opposition to the European Union, with some opposing liberal democracy or rejecting democracy altogether in favor of "Illiberal democracy" or outright authoritarian dictatorship.
The Bonapartist Party, typically shortened to just the Bonapartists, was the name given to a political party that took part to the May 1815 French legislative election but was disbanded following the Second Bourbon Restoration. Following the 1851 French coup d'état led by soon to be Napoleon III, the party was reformed and participated in four elections until being reduced to a minor party after the fall of Napoleon III in 1870. The party once again became major contender during the 1876 election, and remained a major contender until the 1885 election. Following the 1885 election, the party was merged into the Conservative Rally alliance in 1889 when it was finally disbanded.
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